


Confession

by Racethewind_10



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 4B, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Ignores a lot of canon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:37:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racethewind_10/pseuds/Racethewind_10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someday Emma is going to watch the sun set and the color won't remind her of things burning. Someday she will be strong enough to win these battles without nearly losing more people she cares about. Someday there might not even be anymore threats to Storybrooke and she can stop waking in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, wrenching herself from yet another nightmare where she watches her parents or her brother or her son or even the woman in her arms killed because she wasn’t enough to save them.</p><p>Emma is so desperately tired of being not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not like this

**Author's Note:**

> Regina's undercover mission goes sideways and Emma has had enough. Set vaguely during the QOD 4b QOD arc and ignores a lot of canon.
> 
> This fic deals with Regina’s past so allusion to marital rape, child abuse and emotional manipulation. Brief mention of physical harm (not self-harm) and injury. No passages are explicit or graphic, however.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Not like this, not like this, not like this...' It’s a refrain in Emma’s mind; a talisman cheap and broken like the one-armed plastic Army soldier a foster brother gave her in one of her early homes when she’d come back from school with skinned elbows and a bloody lip.

For the inspiration for this fic see [this manip.](http://swanqueensails.tumblr.com/post/96665552509)  I highly recommend visiting swanqueensails' tumblr 

* * *

 

' _Not like this, not like this, not like this_...' The refrain echoes over and over in Emma’s mind, a cheap and broken talisma like the one-armed plastic Army soldier a foster brother gave her in one of her early homes when she’d come back from school with skinned elbows and a bloody lip. She clings to the words like small fingers around that stupid toy and prays that they won’t prove to be so ineffectual as she carefully, so carefully, adjusts her hold on the woman in her arms. Regina is still and small and too, too quiet and its wrong. It’s all wrong because this was  _Emma's_  price to pay, Emma's responsibility, Emma’s choice to make but Regina is the one bleeding. Again. Regina who had gone undercover with four of the most dangerous magic-wielders the town has ever seen to protect them all, to protect _Emma,_ and all for a dammed secret.

A gloved hand trembles as it brushes through sable hair and behind her teeth a scream she can't let escape burns through her bones and pushes outward against her ribs. It won't do any good now so her jaw creaks as she bites it back, but the helplessness just fans the flames of anger. What good is being the  _Savior_  (and even in her own mind that title burns like acid) if all it means is the people she lo...she cares about get hurt? What good is _magic_ if it can just be taken away?

The dull roar of the truck engine has no answers for her. Snow glances back from the front passenger seat, her face pale like a moon in the weak light falling through the windows. Worry and guilt and other emotions Emma doesn't have the energy to give a damn about play across her features and Emma has to not meet Snow's eyes because every time she does that scream of rage pushes a little closer to the surface. It sounds like failure, it sounds like ' _I never asked for this_ ' and it sounds like ' _how dare you ask Regina take my place_ '.

Emma's cheek presses against Regina's forehead and there isn't enough warmth in that soft, soft skin. Regina is small and quiet and curled into Emma's side and she didn't fight when Emma pulled her close, didn't roll her eyes or mutter under her breath, didn’t struggle to stay awake, just breathed out and went still. Only the thin rise and fall of her ribs under Emma's hand gives proof she's still alive. Only the sticky wetness leaking from the sloppy bandage Emma won't change because there isn't enough time tells her that Regina's heart still beats. 

It has to keep beating. 

Because someday Emma is going to watch the sun set and the color won't remind her of things burning. Someday she will be strong enough to win these battles without nearly losing more people she cares about. Someday there might not even be anymore threats to Storybrooke and she can stop waking in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, wrenching herself from yet another nightmare where she watches her parents or her brother or her son or even the woman in her arms killed because she wasn’t enough to save them.

Emma is so desperately tired of being not enough.

The car takes a hard corner and inertia pulls them all at odd angles, forcing Emma to tighten her arms and drawing a tiny, pained noise from somewhere in Regina’s throat. "Careful, dammit!" she snarl.  Some slightly hysterical part of her thinks Regina would be proud of; that her tone would make the other woman raise one of those perfectly sculpted eyebrows and quirk those full red lips like she was trying hard not to smile more...but the thought is small and crumbles beneath the squealing of brakes and the slamming of doors and the familiar sickly neon lights of the hospital. Emma's arms don't want to open and it hurts like trying to wake them up after they've fallen asleep, pins and needles and ‘ _no_ ’ as she struggles to let Regina go.  But ‘ _not like this’_ and it’s the only way to help her so Emma lets go and follows on shaky legs until a nurse she doesn’t recognize pushes a hand against her chest and doors are shutting in front of her.

Hands on her shoulder, hands on her arms, empty words of apology and hope and Emma flinches, twists, has to escape. Has to run. She has to do _something_ and she ignores the hurt on Snow and David’s faces as she strides away. She tries to ignore the feeling that they deserve it.

She’s not as successful at that.

 

TBC


	2. Long Overdue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma doesn’t eat enough, sleeps in half hour stretches and gets a five minute shower in there somewhere but none of it really registers because none of it really matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter allude to less than positive experiences with the Catholic faith, nothing graphic or even inappropriate, just a lack of identification with the tenets of Catholicism. This is done for story purposes ONLY. I have no particular feelings toward any formalized religion and am not attempting to cast judgement on Catholicism. But a teenage Emma isn't fond of the idea of confessing her sins and muses on the experience in this chapter.

Almost 48 hours. That’s how long it takes to finish doing damage control and clean up the. Rumple is still unconscious – maybe for good and Emma isn’t above embracing that surge of vindictive hope – Cruella has been locked away, Ursula sent willingly back to her realm with her father and Mal has vanished for now. It’s as close to a victory as they are probably going to get.

Emma doesn’t eat enough, sleeps in half hour stretches and gets a five minute shower in there somewhere but none of it really registers because none of it really matters. She doesn’t matter. Not right now. The only thing that matters is taking care of this town so that when one certain person wakes up again (and she _will_ wake up) everything that _can_ be fixed, _is_.  Even when Emma is running on nothing but caffeine and adrenaline and her eyes are crossing she keeps going because she has to keep moving and because somewhere in the back of her mind is an image fixed like a compass point to guide her. It’s that rare look Regina gets when she’s pleasantly surprised by something, when her shoulders lose some of their tightness and the corners of her mouth curl up ever so slightly and those dark, dark eyes warm like stained glass in the afternoon sunlight. Sometimes it’s even accompanied by an, “acceptable, Miss Swan,” that years ago would have irritated the shit out of Emma but now just turns her insides to jelly because the only compliments Regina gives are _earned_. 

Right now Emma needs that praise. She needs the perfect Mayor Mills façade, the slight raise of an eyebrow and the smile that is Regina’s tell that she’s actually really pleased because that means it’s _okay_ , that everything is alright again.

That Emma didn’t fail.  

That Emma doesn’t have to do this _alone_.

Because even with her parents by her side and the whole town working together, all it takes is one look at the tear tracks on her son’s face and the way he rubs reddened eyes on his sleeve and pretends like he’s fine for her heart to sink into her boots, nausea cramping her stomach . That’s all it takes for her to feel like the lost little girl a part of her will always, always be and not a savior. Not a mom.

Because she understands now that she _can’t_ do this alone.

And maybe she’s finally ready to admit she doesn’t want to.

So it takes 48 hours to clean up the last of the mess left by Rumple, Cruella and Maleficent (though for a dragon Maleficent did surprisingly little damage and Emma thinks there’s something else going on there but she just doesn’t have the energy to worry about it right now) before she’s ready to limp (literally) back to the hospital, sheer exhaustion - and maybe a knowing look and a gentle shove from David - driving her more than anything. She checks in with Whale who tells her ‘stable, but still unconscious’ and then words in combinations like ‘blood loss,’ ‘shock to her system from the magic’ and ‘needs time’ filter through the grey fog that’s set up around her brain but they don’t really stick. She leaves him with a nod.

Henry, camped out in the second bed in Regina’s room, is Emma’s first stop and she avoids looking at anything but him as she pulls the blankets higher around his shoulders and brushes her fingers through his hair. She thinks about the hundreds of times she’s watched Regina do the same thing and her lungs are suddenly tight, tight, tight with how badly she needs to see it just one more time…

The curtain rustles softly as she pulls it around Henry’s bed.

Hospital furniture sucks. That’s as much a fact here in Storybrooke as everywhere else in the continental United States that Emma has been so she doesn’t bother shifting to try and stop the plastic edges of the chair from digging into her spine or the corner of her shoulder blade. Like a rock that’s been skipped across the surface of a pond finally sinking to the bottom, she just settles, whatever last vestiges of momentum that have kept her going finally bleeding away to leave her empty and pared down to nothing. Her bones are heavy and her eyes burn but she barely blinks, just stares as the monitor leads that twist like white vines from underneath Regina’s hospital gown to grow up, up to the machines that beep softly; proof that Regina is breathing on her own and her heart is beating.

The room is mostly dark, just the monitors and a single overhead light, dimmed for the night. Regina’s skin is ashen, lips pale and bruises beneath her eyes and her hands, her hands that are always shoved in her pockets or tenderly touching Henry’s face or catching arrows or clenching into fists or holding fire or holding someone’s heart...her hands are still, fingers lax and curled around nothing.

Somewhere inside Emma, down deep and banked by weariness, anger stirs. Anger at Fate, that won’t seem to just leave them all the fuck alone, anger at Snow who knew damn well what would happen and still pushed anyway, her words worming themselves into Regina’s heart and twisting, anger at the woman lying so unnaturally silent in front of her, because god dammit, Regina _knew_ better. She knew better and went anyway, with that sad, sad smile Emma has seen too many damn times lately, the one that makes ‘ _I got this’_ look like ‘ _I’m sorry’_ and ‘ _goodbye_.’ Emma hates that smile because Regina has nothing left to be sorry for but she went anyway, went and left Emma to pick up the pieces of their town. Left Emma to try and hold together the pieces of their son. Their son who she knows cried by his mom’s bedside because once again she broke her promise to never let him go and Emma is just _so damned tired of it_.  

She’s tired of fighting and never feeling like it’s a victory. She’s tired of the way everyone looks at her with eyes that see a Savior or a Princess or a pawn. Everyone but Regina, because these days Regina barely looks at her at all and Emma’s had enough, she’s just…

“So damn tired of fighting all the wrong battles.”

Emma doesn’t realize she’s spoken out loud at first, exhaustion blurring the line between what’s in her head and what’s real so it’s only the dryness of her throat and the way she has to breathe in because her lungs are empty that makes her understand. But once she starts, once she starts… There is so much tangled up inside her trying to get out, all the words that have built up in the last four years lodged between her ribs and cutting into her bones, all the things that she wanted to say but were burned up in the heat of anger or held back by a haze of suspicion or just lost because somehow she and Regina have always been better at picking fights than building bridges and when do they ever get quiet moments in this damned town?

Well it’s quiet now.

Too quiet.

In the quiet those words and thoughts are a whirlwind but the eye of the storm – the eye of the storm is Regina. Always Regina. It’s her smug look of victory and her sneer, her soft rare smile and the feeling of her magic dancing over Emma’s skin. It’s Regina telling her to lead and the truth beneath the irritation as Regina tells Emma she has so much potential inside her - the first time anyone in Emma’s life had ever said that. It’s Regina’s lasagna (hey she hasn’t eaten in forever) and the way her kitchen always smells faintly of coffee.  Regina’s eyes blazing with anger or liquid with hurt and the way her voice breaks when she asks, “ _you did this_?” It’s the fierceness of ‘together?’ and the faint surprise when Emma says ‘I’m with Regina.’ It’s the way her entire face lights up around Henry.

It’s Regina’s sad, sad smile as she tells Emma to take care of their son.

Emma doesn’t ever want to see that damn smile again.

Emma might supposedly be the savior but she can’t stop portals from opening or crazy sisters from wanting revenge. She can’t stop flying monkeys from invading or ice queens from existing (though okay fine she could try harder not to bring them back with her like stray puppies). She’s not strong enough to take on a Chernobog or a dragon or a sea witch or Rumple alone. She still struggles with her magic. She still struggles to be what the people of this town always seem to need her to be. She struggles to be a daughter and a mother and a hero and most days she counts it a win if she can even feel like one of those things, and she’s never even entertained the hope she can be all three, no matter what everyone else tells her.

And they do tell her. Her parents because they think she needs to hear it, her son because he truly believes, Killian because, well, he wants in her pants and everyone else in this town because they need a symbol, an idea to fix their beliefs on.

Emma has been an orphan and a thief, a lost girl and a criminal but mostly she’s been alone. And now she has everything she ever dreamed of as a little girl, her mother and her father and her son, she has way too many relatives for her own comfort. She has friends and a _home_. She has a man seemingly devoting his entire existence to her.

It should be enough.

It’s not.

It’s not because the one person who looks at her and sees, really _sees_ Emma can’t open her eyes right now.  It’s not enough because the one person she wants standing by her side through all this is the one too weak to do so, the one sleeping in front of her.

There should probably be something more grandiose to mark the dawning of that realization than the clinical silence of a hospital room, something like swelling music or maybe a few lightning bolts but as Emma shifts wearily so the chair now digs into the bottom of her other shoulder blade, there is only a kind of tired chagrin that it took this long to admit what she’s known somewhere inside her for a very long time now.

Sometimes (usually when she’s in Regina’s presence) Emma doesn’t feel like she knows very much. Especially after New York and the fading of the memories Regina gave her. She doesn’t know much about magical theory or the Enchanted Forest or parenting or relationships in general…but sitting vigil in a darkened room watching the slightest rise and fall of Regina’s chest, Emma _knows_ that somehow, somewhere along the way, her relationship with the woman who once tried to run her out of town has become as constant and necessary as gravity; that Regina is the one person who sees her for who she truly is, and demands she live up – not to Regina’s expectations – but her own.

And though the weak, flawed parts of her balk, defensive anger a distant threat even now, as Emma looks at the pallor of Regina’s skin and the closed curtain around the next bed where their son sleeps, she _knows_ she can’t imagine not having Regina in her life anymore. Because even when she’s using that knowledge to prick at Emma’s ego or her pride or just bait her into making the decision Regina thinks Emma should make, Regina sees her, knows her, _understands_ her in a way that neither her parents, nor her pirate ever will.

Theirs is the most difficult, trying, tumultuous relationship Emma has ever had and yet if she has learned anything these last years, it’s that they are stronger together. They are _better_ together. And riding in that car with Regina in her arms has made it abundantly clear to Emma that losing that relationship is something she can no longer accept.

It may be a loss she can no longer survive.  

Her magic is still quiescent, nothing but the dimmest embers she’s too tired to try and fan right now, but there are other ways to heal and Emma admits silently it’s far past time to try some of them. She thinks back to the beginning, back to “ _I found my real mom!”_ and “ _You’re Henry’s birth mother?_ ” and wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t been so filled with guilt and Regina hadn’t been so afraid, if they both hadn’t been so damn defensive and quick to lash out in fear. Maybe they could have avoided so much of this – or maybe it really was destiny. After all, they’ve broken two curses, moved a moon, traveled to other realms, defeated the Wicked Witch of the West, sent a Snow Queen packing and defeated the Queens of Darkness and Rumpelstiltskin.

Maybe it _was_ supposed to be hard, just like the stories in that stupid Book of Henry’s and all those fantasy novels.

But maybe it didn’t have to be _this_ hard.

Emma really, _really_ needs it to not be this hard anymore.

Taking a slow deep breath, like a diver about to drop below the surface of the ocean, she looks down at the pattern of ugly flowers on the stupid hospital sheets, down at Regina’s too-still hands with the raw red abrasions on the knuckles and starts talking. Her voice is rough, sandpaper over her tongue but the sense of _relief_ \- as if the words are water from a broken dam and she can finally, finally let them go – makes her slump even lower in the chair.

Emma’s never been one for church. The few homes where Sunday morning was spent sitting in a hard pew listening to some withered old man talk about sin or damnation or penitence weren’t usually ones that left her with fond memories. The parents in those homes had always told her it was for her own good to confess her sins, as if sitting in some claustrophobic little box that smelled vaguely of mothballs or stale sweat and reciting a laundry list of ‘bad things’ she had done to a disembodied voice would somehow cleanse her.  Would somehow make her better.  

Would somehow make someone want to keep her.

Even when she was still young, naïve enough to dream of things like forever homes and her real parents finding her, even when hope that the _next_ home could be hers still fluttered in her chest like butterflies in the summer, even then Emma hadn’t believed that the price for those dreams was as simple as telling an adult all the ways she’d failed.

Confession was instead something Emma came to associate with cheap motel ceilings and the burn of cheap tequila or the bars of her prison cell while one hand rested on the steadily growing curve of her belly, not votive candles or gnarled hands holding a rosary. Whatever sense of peace so many people found in that act had always been beyond her grasp and she’d learned to avoid churches all together, especially once she started stealing regularly. Fourteen and fifteen and sixteen and she hadn’t needed one more place that told her she was bad and wrong and needed to be someone else in order to be worthy, in order to be wanted.

So whatever this is, it isn’t confession. Emma has no illusions about being able to lay aside the sins she’s committed, about being able to just wash her hands and start anew. Life doesn’t work that way. _She_ doesn’t work that way.  But there is an odd kind of benevolence in this sterile room with the soft beeping that is _proof_ and the hush outside the door that says the rest of the world is asleep.

Emma thinks of abstract concepts like salvation and redemption and they mean so little, but she thinks about warm dark eyes, about red lipstick armor and a smile that makes her heart trip, about ‘acceptable Miss Swan’ and _understanding…_

The monitors continue to mark time in heartbeats and Emma realizes she’s breathing right along with them. Regina doesn’t stir, but her chest continues to rise and fall and that’s enough. For now.

Emma talks about _everything_.

She starts at the very beginning.

“I never thanked you, for doing what I couldn’t. God knows you made some mistakes along the way but you gave Henry what I couldn’t. And I never thanked you. I know it was hard for a while but he doesn’t know what it’s like to be sent away because he’s not wanted. He doesn’t know what it’s like to go to bed so hungry it hurts or hide in the closet scared because one of his foster parents has been drinking again and he’s got a temper…He’ll never be like me and that was everything I wanted for him and you gave him that, so just… _thank you.”_   She breathes the words into the still air and something eases in her chest, her ribs opening and her shoulders softening,  a burden she’d grown so accustomed to carrying she didn’t realize it was there falling away.

She tells Regina about Neal, “I did love him, but I could never completely forgive him for what he did, dumping me in jail like that.”

About Hook, “He’s an ass. And a bastard. And he has terrible fashion sense but he wanted me. And I just…I wanted to be wanted. I wanted it to be _easy_. For once.”

About her parents, “I hate them for having another kid and naming it after my ex without even asking, and I hate myself for feeling that way, and then to top it all off, I’m relieved, because I’ll never be what they want me to be and now they can dump all their expectations on _him_. They still look at me and see this perfect little girl, their little princess. And we both know I’m not that,” she finishes with a wry expression that tries to be a smile but is probably closer to a grimace and slides into a sigh anyway when Regina doesn’t respond.

It’s a foolish hope, fragile as a guttering candle flame, but Emma can’t help the thought that if she just gives Regina the right opportunity, the other woman will open her eyes and give some witty, slightly cutting retort and they can continue their endless banter.

Silence is her only answer.

So Emma keeps going.

Some things are easy, like the foster brother that gave her the broken toy soldier and taught her how to play chess, the dad in one of the group homes that taught all the kids to play baseball and took them out for ice cream after hours spent in the park just throwing a ball around, the foster mom who’d been an amazing cook and let Emma stand in the kitchen, surrounded by the scents of basil and pepper, fresh bread and sizzling meat while she made dinner.

Some aren’t.

“I owe you, for New York. No one’s ever given me a gift like that and I wanted to – I wanted you to know how much it meant to us. To _me_. And I was going to tell you I swear, but then we came back here and everyone was missing memories and there was Zelena and suddenly…Suddenly I had two lives in my head.” Her arm trembles as she runs fingers through her hair, snagging on tangled strands until Emma grimaces and gives up, letting her hands fall back in her lap. She closes her eyes, keeps talking.

“You know the worst part wasn’t realizing it was all a lie, that I was actually a screw up who gave up her son because she didn’t want him to turn out like her. The worst part was realizing that this fucked up life somehow felt… _right_.” Emma huffs softly and eases her legs out, knees bumping the cold metal side of the bed. The chair back digs into her ribs. She ignores it.

For a moment she falls quiet, words lost while she struggles to sort through the leaded mass of emotion that’s been a weight on her chest and in her lungs for so long she’s gotten used to it damming up everything she needs to say until it’s just easier not to try. But she can’t do that anymore. It’s not about being ‘good’ or being ‘The Savior’ it’s about being able to _breathe_ again. For a while anyway. Emma’s eyes open, blood-shot green gaze drifting to the corner of bandage peeking out from the gap of Regina’s gown and suddenly the words come easy again. Leaning forward, she forces her tired, heavy hands to reach out and wrap her fingers around Regina’s. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers roughly. “I’m so, so sorry I ever said I’d go back to New York. I was scared and selfish and I know that’s not an excuse but…even if it wasn’t real New York was…it was _easy_. It was easy and normal and in New York I could look at myself in the mirror and it was just _me_ , instead of all the things everyone else expects me to be that I’m just…not.  I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night there thinking someone died or panicking because every time someone knocked on my door it meant I was responsible for everyone else’s lives.  Can you understand what that was like? Having something so perfect taken away?” But even as she says it Emma shakes her head and wants to lie down and never get up again because the answer is so so obvious.

“Of course you do. But God Regina – you were always so much stronger than me.” Looking at the sleeping woman, Emma is made small by that knowledge yet again. Because she has learned enough to understand that Regina has lived lifetimes, that ‘a lot’ doesn’t even _begin_ to describe what she’s endured and yet where Emma always scraped through one day to the next, half in danger of detaching at the seams, especially lately, Regina held on to what she felt was hers with an iron grip. Maybe it hasn’t always been healthy, but Emma has never been able to do anything but admire it.

Her vision is starting to blur around the edges, sleep tugging at her body, forcing it to finally shut down in the absence of movement, but she isn’t done and the words tumble together as she tries to get them all out before –before she falls asleep or before there is another crisis or just before she loses her courage. Before this fragile bubble of stillness is broken and something comes along and put them both at odds. Again.

Cradling Regina’s hand between her own, Emma closes her eyes and plows ahead. “You gave me another _life_. They weren’t just memories, I was a different person, a _better_ person and now…now I’m a joke of a Sheriff in a crazy ass town of fairytale characters whose parents already have a replacement kid and whose son was raised to be a good man by another woman who he spent the last two days begging to wake up. Half the time it doesn’t make sense but somehow I think this is right, I just…I _can’t_ do this without you. So I need you to wake the hell up already. Wake up and call me names and criticize my wardrobe and pretend like you’re barely tolerating my presence in Operation Mongoose even though we both know you enjoy it. Wake up because Henry needs his mom and he needs to go back _home_ , Regina.”

She’s crying. It’s not just this moment or this latest crisis or the fact she doesn’t remember what a good night’s sleep feels like. It’s the loss of New York and having a brother and this whole year. It’s an entire life she never really lived that she mourns for even as she grips Regina’s hand like an anchor and lets it all go. She doesn’t sob or gasp, too many years of being punished for making noise ensuring she cries silently, only broken breaths marking the feeling of _purging_ that accompanies the tears slipping over her lashes and down her cheeks.

The storm doesn’t last long, she’s just too damn tired to sustain it. Her eyes are sticky and blurry and she wipes them on her sleeve and lets her head drop to bed next to Regina’s hip. She’s said what she needed to say and it was enough.

It has to be enough.

The scratchy hospital blanket against her cheek is the last thing she feels.

 

TBC


	3. Waking up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re welcome,” Regina rasps, making Emma blink as she tries to kickstart her brain into something resembling higher level functioning. It takes longer than it should but when she gets there…
> 
> “You heard that?” Hope and terror in equal measure but Regina doesn’t offer a scathing comment, just squeezes Emma’s wrist.

One of Emma’s worst times in the system was a two week stretch when she was 14, in a place with three other kids, all younger and all from the system, a timid mother, and a father who liked beer as much as he hated his job. All their names have since faded or been pushed harshly into the dark dusty recesses of Emma’s memory but there was a younger girl with big dark eyes and black hair in pig tails whose careful smile haunts the edges of Emma’s dreams along with dozens of other faces of the ones she’d been forced to leave behind. The girl’s features are faded by time but Emma remembers the color of a bruise on a copper-brown cheek, remembers wide dark eyes red from crying. Remembers how it made her angry so she had _gotten in the way_. Emma woke on the floor the next morning with the girl curled up next to her and everything _throbbing_ right down to the roots of her hair.

Clawing her way back to awareness the next morning hurts almost like it did that day.  In fact the sole exception probably _is_ her hair, only because someone is running gentle fingers through it.  Her spine is rusted metal and her neck cracks when she tries to sit up but when she does, when she does its worth it. Every bruise, every ache, every sore muscle is worth it because when she peels her cheek off the bedding (she can feel the waffle weave of the fabric impressed on her skin and a wet spot where she totally drooled) and forces her eyes to open Regina is looking back at her. Those dark eyes are a little glazed and the curve of her lips is tired and lopsided but she’s awake. She’s awake and looking at Emma and her fingers are curling around Emma’s wrist and she’s beautiful. Even with her skin still too pale, even with the bruising under her eyes, even with those damn wires crawling all over her.

She’s beautiful.

“You’re welcome,” Regina rasps, making Emma blink as she tries to kickstart her brain into something resembling higher level functioning. It takes longer than it should but when she gets there…

“You heard that?” Hope and terror in equal measure but Regina doesn’t offer a scathing comment, just squeezes Emma’s wrist.

“Most of it. Enough.”

It’s probably crazy given their history, it’s definitely crazy given how many curveballs fate likes to throw at them but Emma’s heart gives a little lurch upward at something that feels like a maybe, like a possibility, like a chance for something _more_.

“Emma, I…” Regina trails off but Emma is already shaking her head.

“Unless you’re about to apologize for going off-plan and throwing yourself into the line of fire again, it can wait.”

That familiar scowl shouldn’t make her knees go liquid with relief but it does. It does and Emma is glad she’s sitting down because she’s almost _giddy_ , which might be the sleep deprivation or it might be that she’s just so damn thankful Regina is awake and _able_ to be grumpy. Whatever the reason there’s no answering heat on Emma’s skin, no flush in her cheeks or surge of irritation in her blood. Regina tries to say something about how it was necessary (and maybe it was because Emma’s magic was gone and she’s raw and still only half trained but that’s not the _point_ ) but Emma just cuts her off with a shake of her head. ‘ _Not like this_ ’ is still too close, too real, the brief high of ‘ _she’s awake’_ and ‘ _you heard?’_ giving way to blood on Emma’s fingers and cold skin against her cheek and beep…beep…beep.

“You promised,” The words are sharp, but it’s the sharpness of steel honed too thin, brittle, weak and in danger of shattering at the slightest pressure.  Emma almost flinches. She can hear ‘ _we’re having a baby of our own’_ and ‘ _our daughter is all grown up’_ and ‘ _find Tallahassee’_ in her own voice.It’s probably all over her face but she can’t look away because behind those dark dark eyes Regina’s walls are down and all Emma can think about is the way she felt in that car; still and small and quiet and _wrong_.  “You told Henry you wouldn’t let him go again. That means you don’t get to leave either, Regina. You don’t get to leave him.”

“ _You don’t get to leave_ me,” is what she wants to say but outside the sun is up, the grey light filtering through the thin curtains bringing with it the sounds of a waking hospital – voices and footsteps in the hallway and cars outside that banish that permissive quiet from last night.

Except maybe there is a little magic left, because Regina’s eyes are warm and the tension sort of bleeds out of her on a soft sigh as her fingers gently thread through Emma’s. There’s a spark, weak and tired, but it’s there as Regina’s magic nudges her own.  Emma tastes citrus and sunshine on the back of her tongue.

“Alright,” Regina whispers, giving Emma’s fingers the tiniest of squeezes. “Alright.”

Whatever comes next, whatever Emma might have said gets to wait as the curtain around the other bed rattles to reveal Henry, hair mussed, rubbing the sleep from his face and blinking in shock. “Mom? Mom!” He rushes over to hug her but carefully, so carefully like he thinks Regina might shatter, the sight like a punch to Emma’s gut because their son never should have had to learn to be so careful with his mothers. 

‘ _Never again’_ is a promise Emma has been making to herself and the woman in that bed all night, but she’s still thinking it as she lets go of Regina’s hand so she can wrap her good arm around her son.

Standing on tired legs to leave and give the two of them some privacy, Emma tries not to miss the warmth of Regina’s fingers in her own.

 

* * *

 

Emma doesn’t actually get back to the hospital until the next morning but she checks in with Henry via text so when her phone buzzes with an urgent “ _mom’s trying to leave ama and go home on her own i need backup_!” she’s really not even a little surprised.

At least the last 24 hours included some time spent horizontal on a bed, a hot shower and clean clothes so she’s feeling somewhere in the vicinity of what passes for normal by the time her boot heels thud along the corridor outside Regina’s room. The room that Emma doesn’t even need to remember the number for because she can hear raised voices carrying out the door and down the hall just fine. She turns the corner to see Regina sitting up in bed, still in her hospital gown, arguing with Whale. Her skin is still too pale but her eyes are clear and narrowed in ire and damn but Emma’s heart lurches just a little higher in her chest at the sight.

And then that heart maybe kind of skips a beat because Regina glances up over Whale’s shoulder to see her coming and looks…relieved? That can’t be right. Emma is relieved to see Regina. Regina is furious or annoyed or sometimes if Emma is really lucky Regina is not actively irritated and maybe a little amused but she’s not _relieved_. Except then Emma realizes Whale is talking about keeping Regina for another few days, saying things like ‘close observation’ and ‘proper care’ and Regina looks fucking _trapped_ , her fingers digging into the blankets so hard the knuckles are completely white beneath the reddened scratches and if her spine gets any straighter something is going to snap.

 Emma’s mouth starts working before her brain can even get close to catching up.

“She’ll have help.”

It’s hard to tell who’s more stunned, Regina, or Whale, who apparently didn’t hear Emma approach. He’s now looking at her with something that is probably supposed to be professional superiority but is really just making Emma’s skin crawl. In that moment she wants Regina out of there as much as the other woman wants to leave. A quick glance at Henry where he’s standing in the corner trying to make himself invisible gets her a sharp nod and Emma wonders if this will get an ‘Operation’ name.

“Sheriff I don’t think --”

Emma gives him her undivided attention, concentrating very hard on how little she likes the man. It might be a trick she’s learned from Regina.

Shockingly, Whale caves. Though his expression reminds Emma of someone swallowing a lemon, he allows Regina to go home AMA.

Emma catches Regina’s eyes as Whale turns away just in time to see another flicker of relief and tries to ignore the way it makes something in her chest warm and light. 

 

* * *

 

As the nurse walks away with the last of the paperwork, Emma drops the bag of clothes she’d grabbed from her apartment on the bed. They’re just jeans, a button down and an oversized, zip-up hoodie but they’re clean and they’ll get Regina home.

She’s half-expecting the injured woman to refuse them outright, or at best to turn up her nose, but instead Regina just picks up the shirt and turns it over in her hands, blinking at it like she can’t quite wrap her mind around the simple object.

“Hey kid, scram while your mom gets dressed, okay?” Emma says, keeping her eyes on Regina, who, at the reminder Henry is still in the room, straightens, smoothing her expression into what Emma recognizes as one of her ‘I’m fine’ masks. The smile that breaks over her face when Henry gently hugs her though is real, something painfully open and raw on her face as she watches her son walk out the door.  

“I meant it,” Emma finds herself saying softly. “You’ll have help.”

“And…the rest?” Regina isn’t looking at her, dark eyes instead fixed on the fabric in her hands and even though she’s sitting up and talking there is something about her that reminds Emma of still and small and too quiet. Emma’s thinks of relief on Regina’s face, of ‘ _I’m in_ ,’ of gentle hands in her hair and something _more_. If the price for those things is honesty…

“All of it.”

Maybe, just maybe, she’s finally ready to pay it.

“Thank you.”

The sick fluorescent hospital lighting is barely augmented by the cold grey sunlight falling through the window but when Regina looks up at her Emma thinks of stained glass in afternoon sun.

 

* * *

 

The tentative, cautious peace they seem to have reached holds through Regina getting dressed while Emma does her best to help as little as possible, through the car ride and all the way home.

Henry hovers and Emma catches the softness on Regina’s face when he jumps out of the back seat to help her out of the car. She even allows herself to lean on him – only just a little but even that is frankly a miracle – as they walk up the steps of the mansion.

By the time Regina makes it up the stairs to her bedroom, though, she looks positively grey, her pallor making Henry’s eyes wide and fearful until Emma chases him out of the room to help Regina settle. Fortunately she’s exhausted enough all it takes is Emma pulling back the blankets. The injured woman doesn’t even resist when Emma kneels down to take off her shoes and helps lift her legs onto the bed.  Nor does she complain when Emma hands her the Vicodin prescription and a glass of water with a straw. Instead she just takes her pills and closes her eyes, breathing evening out quickly. Emma watches long enough to see lines of stress on Regina’s face ease, then carefully pulls the zipper down on the hoody before unbuttoning just enough buttons to make sure the bandage is still in place and there doesn’t appear to be any bleeding. The white sterile pad looks grossly out of place against Regina’s side and Emma can’t stand more than a glance, just buttons the shirt back up and then tucks the covers up under Regina’s chin.

Part of her wants to stay, wants to just lie down on the other side of the bed, wants to watch Regina breath until she wakes up, till all of this is over, but Henry is downstairs and probably hungry and she should probably call Snow and David to let them know how things are going and that she’ll be staying here for a while, then she needs to call Robin to make sure the Merry Men have finished with the outer parts of town and…

With a sigh Emma stands and leaves, closing the door gently behind her.

 

TBC


	4. Proof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In her minds’ eye she can see leads like white vines rising from Regina’s chest and they were wrong, wrong, wrong but they were proof. Now her shoulders sink into the too-soft mattress and she can’t sleep, her breathing too loud and too quick. Now her heartbeat pounds dull and heavy in her ears and it isn’t the rhythm she wants to hear.

The ceiling of Regina’s guest room is a flat, featureless plane. There are no monitors, no dull green fluorescent light, no impossibly uncomfortable chair. The sheets smell faintly of cedar and not disinfectant.  She should be asleep, finally catching up on much needed rest now there is nothing to disturb her. Instead, Emma stares into the darkness, wide awake, straining to hear the soft beep of monitors that don’t exist here. In her minds’ eye she can see leads like white vines rising from Regina’s chest and they were wrong, wrong, wrong but they were _proof_. Now her shoulders sink into the too-soft mattress and she can’t sleep, her breathing too loud and too quick. Now her heartbeat pounds dull and heavy in her ears and it isn’t the rhythm she wants to hear.

Regina woke in the afternoon, her energy lasting long enough to talk to Henry while she sat up to eat some soup and crackers before taking another pain pill and falling asleep quickly after. The speed with which her strength flagged made Emma grit her teeth, placgin call Whale who sounded irritated and smugly superior but he assured her that as long as Regina kept consuming fluids and taking her meds – pain and antibiotics – for the next few days, sleeping was the best thing for her body.  Emma hadn’t said thank you before hanging up on him.

That was this afternoon. Now night blankets Storybrooke, Henry is in bed and the huge house is quiet. Too quiet. 

Exhaustion weighs Emma’s limbs down, pressing her into the bed but frustration makes her very skin seem too tight and her heart beats too fast in her chest telling her sleep is a lost cause.  

With a groan that sounds unnaturally loud in the cotton-thick silence, she gives up, rolling out of bed to make her way on careful feet down the hall. A dim sliver of light spilling through the crack under Henry’s door says the kid is still up reading and for a second she smiles, thinks about going in and seeing what but…but there’s another door just down the hall that pulls her like a magnet.

It’s probably an invasion of privacy but Regina spent almost 72 hours in the hospital and Emma was there when she put her clothes on. Emma stood behind her, holding up the button down while Regina carefully eased her arms into the sleeves, only a soft hiss quickly bitten off suggesting just how much discomfort she felt. Though she did her best to give Regina privacy it had been impossible not to look at the swath of bandages covering the curve of her side, impossible not to think about sticky wetness against her fingers, about the weak rise and fall of Regina’s ribs under her hand and now she’s thinking about it all over again but there is no beep…beep…beep.  No _proof._  

So Emma creeps down the hall, twists the door handle to Regina’s room and looks in. 

The curtains on the window beyond the bed are open just enough to let slender beams of silver light from the full moon pour across the floor, shading everything in greys and soft not-blacks. Emma can just trace the shape of Regina’s body under the covers, see the pale line of her arm and barely, just barely Emma can make out the rise and fall of Regina’s chest. The iron bands around her ribs soften, easing open until she sags against the door frame, its hard edges digging into the muscle of her shoulder unheeded.

Emma is tired and still sore and it’s not like tomorrow is going to be any less hectic but her feet are rooted to the spot, toes digging into the thick carpet so she can’t move, just stands with her eyes fixed on that tiny, steady movement.

“Miss Swan, what are you doing?”

The question surprises her so badly she jumps and has to clutch at the door frame to keep herself upright, has to scramble and fumble for words. Has to remember why they’re here in the first place.

It’s hard when Emma can sense Regina’s scrutiny, when the excuses jump to her tongue first, when she wants to fumble and leave so Regina never sees her blush or hears the fear in her voice. But behind that reaction is the memory of relief in dark eyes, of fingers in her hair, of the flickering hope of _more._ Such frail, insubstantial things to place so much weight on, but she clings to ‘ _never again’_ and breathes and breathes until her heart stops racing, until she’s ready to pay the price again.

“It was too quiet, in my room.” _I needed to see you._ She doesn’t say that part. Not yet. Not when she doesn’t know how strong the spell is tonight, how careful she has to be.

And maybe it’s the darkness or maybe Regina just _knows_ her because the other woman shifts, fabric rustling.

“I’m alright Emma.” Her name sounds like a sigh but it’s not a dismissal and Regina’s voice…something about her voice is careful like Emma is holding on to the door careful. Careful like tiptoeing down a hallway careful.

“You weren’t though and I just…” 

In the silvery light Emma can’t really see Regina’s eyes, can’t make anything out beyond the shadows beneath her brow so she holds herself still because the next words, the next words could pull them forward or they could shatter everything like glass, adding more debris to the wreckage they’ve piled between themselves. Maybe she’s a coward or maybe a part of Emma just knows that this can’t be her move – that Regina has to be able to _choose_. Whatever the reason she freezes, teetering between hope and resignation, between moving forward and falling backward, she hovers on the knife’s edge of possibility and tries so hard not to _want._  

“Then come lie down.” Barely a whisper but it trembles in the air and Emma thinks yeah, maybe she isn’t the only one who is scared.

Maybe she isn’t the only one who needs proof.

The covers are soft and thick and Emma has the inane thought that Regina totally has one of those stupidly expensive memory foam mattresses because her whole body just sort of _sinks_ into the bed, the way it cradles her weary muscles feeling really, really good. Not as good, though, as the soft warm skin under her fingertips when Emma touches Regina’s wrist. It’s just a touch, just her fingertips brushing across the delicate ridge of bone, just something to remind herself that Regina is safe and whole and _here_ , just the tiniest touch to assuage the cold splinter of fear in the back of her mind that whispers ‘ _it can’t be this easy_ ’ with icy lips.

When the spark leaps between them her breath catches, throat suddenly thick. It’s small – Regina’s magic is wearyweakhurting and she can feel that somehow – but more than Emma dared hope for. If she weren’t already lying down she’d collapse in relief at the familiar taste of citrus on her tongue as it slips beneath her skin like sunshine, teasing at the banked embers of her own power and fanning them till they flicker minutely before going out again. That brief, weak glimmer is enough for a tightness in her shoulders she hadn’t even been aware of to ease, for her head to sink deeper into the pillow, for permission to finally think that this too, shall pass.  It will pass because Regina is going to be _okay_ and Emma still has her magic, still has the one thing that makes her strong enough to protect the people she cares about. It might take days, even weeks before she’s ready for another magical fight, but Emma can feel it inside her again if she concentrates hard enough.

Her eyelids are heavy but Emma just lies on her side watching the barely perceptible rise of the blankets that tells her Regina is still breathing.

She doesn’t remember closing her eyes.

“I can never forgive Snow for…for murdering my mother…but…I know Henry is safer, that _I’m_ safer with her gone”

The words are rough and cracked, barely audible even in the silence of Regina’s well-insulated bedroom and it takes a few seconds for Emma’s mind to catch up to her ears but when it does, when it does, it takes every ounce of hard-won self-control not to react.

Regina’s admission is stunning. Emma hadn’t said what she’d said, hadn’t poured out all the words bottled up inside her because she expected Regina to reciprocate. Hoped maybe, but that hope was nebulous and distant, merely an idea not a concrete wish.   

Then again, maybe Emma shouldn’t be so surprised. So much of the tension between them has always come from their similarities more than their differences – both damaged, lonely women who have bled, scraped, fought for every single thing they can call theirs, both building walls so strong and high they wouldn’t know how to take them down even if they wanted to anymore, walls that only Henry has the key to getting inside.  If Emma has been struggling, perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised that Regina feels something like the weight pressing down on her ribs. She’s used to thinking of her parents as making that weight worse, but at least she _has_ them. Regina’s only true allies are their fourteen year old son and well, Emma.  Even if Robin and Snow might have been counted among that number not long ago, Snow is distracted with Neal and the arrival of the Queens and the return of Rumple has strained everything, bringing back harsh words and suspicious glances and Regina pulling in on herself, driven on a mission Emma didn’t understand until it was too late and Regina was alone again with no one to hear her.

 _‘You did this_?’ and ‘ _I’m in’_ and ‘ _take care of Henry’_ are vivid in Emma’s memory, soft words with jagged edges cutting deep, until she has to fight the urge to curl up tight tight tight into a ball and hide until it all goes away because it _won’t,_ because it’s her fault, and because she owes Regina so, so much. She owes Regina for Henry, for herself, for Marian, for trying to take on the burden that should have been her parents.

For last night.

Regina gave her the gift of pretending, of silence while Emma pulled at all the tangled threads of her life that have led her _here_ and laid them bare.

Returning that silence is the least Emma can do so she bites her lip, keeps her breathing slow and steady, keeps her eyes closed, and waits.

 

TBC


	5. Magic Is Emotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But the longer Regina speaks the farther away from ‘easy’ it becomes until easy is shattered like a storefront window by a brick, until it’s the hardest thing Emma has ever done to simply be still, to lie in the dark in the soft soft bed and listen as that rough velvet voice reveals a life Emma wonders if anyone else – with the possible exception of Archie – has ever heard the whole of.
> 
>  **Warning** : This chapter contains Regina's backstory so the referenced/implied rape warnings apply here. Also allusions to experiences of child abuse by both Emma and Regina. No descriptions are graphic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is turning into Dealanexmachina's fic, because I owe her for a fic I'm never completing. Sorry, you get this one instead ;)

She knows better, she really does, but Regina is quiet for so long Emma starts to relax, thinking the injured woman tired enough to have fallen back asleep. Her heart rate slows and her fingers uncurl from the fist she’d made out of instinct and she knows better because that’s the exact moment that Regina starts talking again.

Regina is speaking and that low raspy voice reaches inside Emma and the words, the words fall like blows. She’s speaking again and Emma wishes it was still quiet, that she was still waiting. Regina is speaking and Emma begins to understand, oh Emma begins to understand all too well.

“My mother was…not kind, and she had a great many ambitions for me. I didn’t share them, not then anyway.”

Emma Swan knows how to be invisible, to be smallstill _quiet_ so that danger looks right passed her. She knows how to fade into a shadow and disappear into a crowd so a mark’s eyes slide right over without ever even slowing down. It’s a skill that never comes easily, the price of failure bruises on skin or the hollow ache of hunger. Emma has always been a very good student outside the four walls of a classroom, hasn’t paid the price for those hard-earned talents in a very long time.  They’re so deeply ingrained it’s like waking up, like putting on the right shade of lipstick, like looking both ways to cross the street.

Easy.

But the longer Regina speaks the farther away from ‘easy’ it becomes until easy is shattered, like that storefront window Emma threw a brick into in 7th grade because the owner had called her trash. Until it’s the hardest thing Emma has ever done to simply be still, to lie in the dark in the soft soft bed and listen as that rough velvet voice reveals a life Emma wonders if anyone else – with the possible exception of Archie – has ever heard the whole of.

Regina talks in fits and starts, trailing off sometimes clearly searching for the right words, like when she alludes to Cora’s “expectations.”  She doesn’t use terms like ‘abuse’ and ‘grooming’ but Emma knows this story, has seen it play out in too many homes, felt it written on her own skin in slaps or belts or heard it in the clicking of a lock and not even in the _worst_ of the homes she survived did the parents have magic to control, to hurt, to heal and leave no trace.  No, Emma doesn’t need to see every paragraph. She can read between the lines herself.

Other times Regina’s breathing grows ragged and it takes long moments before she regains control and continues. Daniel’s story is like that, images of a handsome, gentle young man that filled a young Regina with hope painted in bright colors between crumbling breaths, emotion held in the words like water in cupped palms still so raw and vivid that Emma can imagine his smile and smell the scent of horses on his clothes.

She knows this - some of it anyway - Snow confessed her part one night across the kitchen counter when neither one of them could sleep, back when ‘worrying about Regina’ meant ‘worrying about what Regina might do to other people’ and not ‘worrying what Regina might do to _herself_.’ Her mother’s jewel bright eyes had been dull and full of shadows as she admitted to betraying Regina’s trust and told Emma the price the other woman had paid because Snow’s naivety “ _and selfishness. I was young and foolish but…I was selfish_ ,” she had whispered, unable to meet Emma’s eyes. It had all seemed so fantastical, then, far away and ridiculous – larger than life queens and True Loves and crushed hearts and Emma knew better, _knows_ better, but sipping cocoa in a warm kitchen late at night surrounded by gleaming appliances and faux rustic brickwork it just…felt like a fairytale.

Even then the irony didn’t escape her.

There is no cocoa, no warm kitchen and as Regina’s voice rises and falls, Emma feels an echo of the same terror that must have gripped a young woman’s heart as cruelly as Cora’s fingers in Daniel’s chest. She can smell Cora’s perfume over the rich earthy scents of the stables and it makes her want to gag.  Her lungs constrict and tears prick her eyes as True Love’s kiss is ineffectual and Emma swears she can feel the solid iron bands of Fate closing around her ankles as Cora says “ _love is a weakness_.”

“And then when…when the king asked for my hand, my mother said yes.”

The silence following these words stretches, stretches, stretches and when Regina continues all that rawness is gone from her voice, jagged edges not smoothed but hammered down, beaten until there is no moderation, no emotion, no inflection. Smokey velvet is flat and dull and when Regina speaks, when she speaks Emma wants to be sick, wants to roll over and empty the meager contents of her stomach, wants to scream and punch something because she _knows_ that tone and those words, she knows what they mean. She’s seen too many women with eyes as empty as Regina’s voice.

“In the Enchanted Forest marriage…marriage was consent.”

Emma swallows, swallows to keep the nausea down and the scream between her ribs, to not be sick all over the bed because she _owes_ Regina this. Even if she hadn’t spent nearly an entire night pouring out the stories of all her homes, all her mistakes and her history, she would still owe Regina this space, this silence.

She owes Regina the chance to be able to tell her own story.

But it is so hard to just stay still and keep breathing.

Emma feels like a coward for the relief that steals through her when Regina doesn’t talk any more about the king. She describes some of the loneliness and isolation of his castle but her tone is distant and weary instead of lifeless. Emma swallows and breathes just a little easier.

Just a little.

Then even that reprieve is taken away with a single name.

“He was called Rumpelstiltskin, and he offered me freedom and power. He offered me…Daniel.”

Emma listens to the birth of the Evil Queen.

Regina doesn’t shy from shouldering the blame for her actions, describing her own decisions with pitiless clarity even as she admits to the fear and rage and desperate, desperate hope that drove her, but she names Rumple a teacher and magic a lesson and with every word that scream inside Emma gets a little louder, pushes at her ribs and burns under skin a little hotter.  Because Emma can see so clearly what Regina apparently can’t – or won’t, for her own sanity – admit; that the hope she clung to was fool’s gold, a carrot dangled in front of her while Rumple systematically shaped her, while he built - cruelty by cruelty - the woman who would curse an entire land to another realm.

In so many ways listening to Regina describe her lessons is almost worse than knowing the rape she suffered at Leopold’s (Emma will never, _ever_ think of him as her grandfather again) hands.  Because magic is emotion and Rumple made damn sure Regina’s power was drawn from only the darkest, from anger and pain and rage until that wasn’t just how she made magic, it was the only thing she _knew._

Until she was the perfect tool for Rumple’s purposes.

The story spins out and Emma connects the dots, realization making her stomach rebel yet again as she begins to grasp just how brutally the woman next to her has been used by so many people; by her mother as a path to power, by a king who wanted a pretty ornament and caretaker for his daughter, by Rumple – and Emma _seethes_ as the pieces finally, _finally_ fall into place and God how did she not realize, how did she not see it sooner? – by Rumple as the answer to a dilemma, a magic wielder powerful enough to cast his curse, allowing him to find Neal – Baelfire – all without having to sacrifice what _he_ loved.

That scream inside her is a storm under her skin that howls for action, for revenge, for the feeling of Rumple’s bones breaking beneath her fists.  She knows it’s useless but Emma just wants to make it all _stop_. She wants to erase a lifetime of abuse and manipulation, wants to bring back all the dead that were collateral damage to a man’s cowardice as much as a woman’s need for vengeance. Pan, Rumple, Hook, Neal, Cora, Snow, the king, Regina…hundreds of years and more blood shed and lives lost than can be counted and Emma just wants it all to _end_ , just wants to _fix_ it and she has never felt so impotent as she does in that moment, the title of ‘Savior’ bitter ash on her tongue and splinters in her throat as she lies motionless in the dark bedroom.

Maybe that’s why she reaches out, why she’s simply unable to hold herself still any longer, why she can’t stifle the desire, the _need_ to touch. Why even though scant inches divide them Emma _has_ to bridge the gap between her hand and Regina’s.

Fingers slide across the sheets to brush warm warm skin and she’s not thinking at all, just feeling, feeling so damn much because Emma just wants it to stop, wants Regina to _not hurt_ …

Someday, Regina will use what happens next against her in that teasing way people have when they remind someone they care about of that one time they were an absolute idiot.  “Remember the time you…” and everyone will laugh and the subject of the story turns red but they’re smiling too. Someday it will be tossed across the breakfast table with Henry shaking his head at his mothers. Someday it will make them both smile fondly but when it happens, while Emma’s trapped, unable to let go of Regina because she can’t physically move while her magic _pours_ into the other woman like a damned tidal wave, while she’s living it, it’s the most terrifying few seconds of Emma’s life.  Her magic, her broken, depleted magic floods across the connection of their hands, sweeping through Regina with enough force to make the other woman’s body bow, spine arching, skin glowing with power. There’s so much of it that the room brightens, magic lapping against the corners of the ceiling like waves, splashing light across the walls. The power spills into Regina and washes back through the connection of their hands and Emma tastes Regina’s magic mixed with her own, sunshine and the ocean, citrus and woodsmoke until its overwhelming her senses and she can’t breathe..

It’s over as soon as it starts, magic falling away to nothing, plunging the room into darkness once more. Emma, finally in control of her body again, yanks her hand away so hard she throws herself backward off the bed, elbow connecting with the small nightstand with a loud bang and a dull thud as her body hits the floor. It takes far too long for her to struggle out of the tangle of covers she’s dragged with her and climb back onto the mattress, turning and fumbling for the lamp switch and bathing the room in soft gold light before spinning back around.

“Regina? Regina answer me are you okay?” She’s almost begging, frantic as she searches for a pulse, the image of Regina caught in her magic seared into her memory and what if there was more damage what if Emma did something to really hurt her _what if she’s not okay what if_

“Emma, Emma it’s alright. Emma stop!”

Emma freezes, hands pressed to Regina’s cheek and throat.  She’s kneeling next to the other woman, struggling to fill her lungs but there are hands against her own and…is Regina smiling? Regina is _smiling_ , those full lips tilting up at the corners, a quick tongue darting out to wet them. Emma’s not staring, really. Except she is totally staring, she’s staring at Regina’s eyes, at deep warm brown nearly eclipsed by the black of her pupils, she’s staring at the flush of color that stains Regina’s cheeks where they’re hot under Emma’s fingers, she’s trying and failing not to stare at the too-quick rise and fall of Regina’s chest under the white cotton shirt.

“What were you thinking, Miss Swan?” Emma blinks, yanks her gaze back up to meet Regina’s. Those words should be caustic, accusatory and full of anger but instead they’re just…amused? Regina looks a _mused_ , her eyes dark but soft, soft like the gentle smile on her face, soft like the way her hands are still covering Emma’s.  “Emma, what were you trying to do?” and she’s coaxing. Regina _never_ coaxes.

Emma thinks she must look truly terrible if Regina is being this gentle with her so she swallows, pulls carefully away and sits back on her heels. “I wasn’t,” she admits, feeling heat stain her cheeks as she braces for the cutting reply.

“You weren’t what?” but Regina’s voice is still soft, still smooth like silk, still coaxing.

“Thinking at all I just…” Emma looks down at her hands. “I wanted to stop you from hurting anymore.” She flinches even as she says the words because God, how stupid can she possibly sound and Regina’s going to call her an idiot and tell her she can’t go around out of control like that and -

“Breathe, Emma. It’s alright. I’m alright.” There’s a soft touch of fingers to the back of her hand and Emma’s eyes fix on the connection, trace fingers to knuckles to wrist to arm to shoulder to lips to dark dark eyes that are so very tender and warm and even with her own, because Regina is sitting up. She’s sitting up and smiling with something that looks a lot like fondness. Emma forgets how to breathe all over again. All the sickly paleness is gone from Regina’s skin, the bruises below her eyes have faded and the knuckles that reach up brush against Emma’s cheek are whole and smooth.

“What…?”

Regina just laughs, low and easy, shaking her head slightly. “Magic is emotion Miss Swan, don’t you remember?” Again, Emma knows this script, knows Regina should be seething with her student’s incompetence and Emma should be bracing for a fight but instead, instead Regina unbuttons her shirt from the bottom enough to ease the fabric aside, pulls off the thick bandage and reveals _not_ ugly sutures and deep red gashes but just skin, whole and smooth and perfect once more.

 

TBC


	6. Reassurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry,” Emma offers, only a little desperately. “I just,” she stops, managing only barely to stifle the ‘had to.’

Emma reaches out, hesitant but unable to stop herself, drawn by that old particular gravity that has always existed in some form or another between them.  Regina doesn’t push her away, doesn’t flinch as Emma’s fingertips trace the lines of bloody gashes that exist now only in her memories – and she’s sure her nightmares to come.  Her gaze catches on the paleness of her own fingers against Regina’s autumn sunshine skin, skin that’s soft and warm where Emma’s palm rests on Regina’s ribs. She can feel the other woman’s breathing, slow and steady and deep, feel the echo of a strong heartbeat when she exhales, synchs her own breathing to that easy rhythm without realizing. 

In. Out. In. Out.

Slowly, slowly, panic lessens its grip on Emma, her heart climbing back down out of her throat and pulse fading from her ears, but she doesn’t take her hand away from Regina’s side, not yet.

Regina doesn’t make her.

They sit facing each other, quiet and calm, the silence wrapping around them both like a blanket, comforting and safe while everything else falls away unheeded.  

Only when Emma’s arm begins to tremble from strain does awareness of anything but the feeling of Regina’s ribs pushing against her hand start to filter through her brain. She flushes when she realizes just how close they are, the intimacy of the moment suddenly too much to bear so she sits back, wincing as legs gone numb tingle with pins and needles.

Her hand feels empty and cold without the warmth of Regina’s skin beneath it.  

Regina rebuttons her shirt, the silence straining under a growing weight.

“I’m sorry,” Emma offers, only a little desperately. “I just,” she stops, managing only barely to stifle the ‘ _had to._ ’  

Regina seems to understand anyway, her expression gentle when she looks up, something unfathomable in her dark eyes. It’s not an unfamiliar look and Emma is caught in memories overlaid on the present like a double exposed photograph.  There are echoes of a mine shaft and the glow of a diamond, the humidity of Neverland and the agony of ‘no no _not yet’_ on the town line, of ‘our son’ and ‘I don’t _want_ to kill you,’ a shared moment, soft and full in the Mayor’s office over a memory potion, and the desperation of a clandestine meeting in a library.

 Not for the first time Emma wishes she were better at reading the subtle nuances of Regina, at knowing if she’s seeing only what she wants to see or... For all their similarities, for all the ways they seem to get each other, there are just some moments when the other woman is a cypher Emma _knows_ she could unlock if she could only find the right key, and she hungers for that key with an intensity that scares her enough not to think about too much lest it lead to opening doors they both aren’t ready for.

Like right now. Its moments like these, leaden and taut, like they’re both standing on a precipice, that tend to result in them slipping out of synch. One pushing forward when the other needs space, one pulling away when the other needs assurance, one lashing out because they are the only ones strong enough to withstand each other’s pain.  Emma desperately wants that not to happen, struggles to find the right things to say because they are so, _so_ close and she knows if she can just _not screw this up_ maybe, just maybe she can finish fixing what’s broken between them, can put another brick in the bridge they’ve built on the foundation of saving Henry and saving the town and a promise of a happy ending.

“It’s alright, Emma,” Regina replies and it’s _careful,_ they’re both being so careful that that little flicker of hope in Emma’s chest gets just a bit brighter.  And then ‘careful’ – as usual – goes out the window when Regina continues. Looking down at her hands, the smaller woman rubs absently at her palm, her expression fading to wistful and a note of longing in her voice. “It’s nice, to think someone cares.”

Emma blinks, shock and frustration making her momentarily stupid before her mouth runs off with her again.

“Regina of course someone cares, dammit. Henry cares, your family cares I… _I_ _care_. I meant what I said. Last night, about Operation Mongoose, all of it.” The last slips from her mouth before she can bite it back but everything that’s happened is too close to the surface and even though she’s almost shaking, Emma doesn’t look away.

Regina does.  “Thank you,” she says quietly, voice is like faded velvet.

Silence descends in the wake of emotion and Emma opens her mouth to speak, closes it again. Opens it…and then yawns. Slapping a hand over her mouth she feels her cheeks heat, but Regina is looking at her with that fond half smile and something like relief in her dark eyes as she straightens, easy authority folding like a cloak on her shoulders, the tension between them washing away once more. Emma doesn’t know if she’s grateful or frustrated.

“Using that much magic will take a toll, and unless I miss my guess, you haven’t been sleeping well for some time.” It’s not a question and Emma shrugs but doesn’t deny it.

“Lie down Emma, before you fall on your face.” The order is gentle, but Emma doesn’t even think of arguing because Regina’s right, she can feel exhaustion tugging at her bones, curling her shoulders inward like they used to when she was small and would sleep curled tight in a ball.  In Regina’s presence it makes her feel young, vulnerable and for a moment she tries to  fight it, thinks about going back to the bed down the hall, cold and dark and empty like she has to prove something.

Regina continues, her tone dry and calm and reassuring, cutting through the growing fog of _need to sleep_ in Emma’s mind.  “Frankly I’m impressed you’re still conscious.”

It’s the right thing to say – gentle barbs setting the world even again beneath Emma and she falls back onto the bed, searching for a witty comeback. It’s too late though, she’s already sinking into the pillows and whatever repartee she might have managed is lost under a groan of sheer animal pleasure as the mattress cradles her body.

With a twitch of her fingers, Regina sets the bedding sailing off the floor and over the bed neatly once more. Another motion and the bedside lamp blinks out, plunging the room into soft darkness as she settles herself with far more grace.

“Regina,” Emma starts, stops, not sure what to say, only fighting sleep because she’s not quite ready to give up the tentative connection that still remains, just out of reach.  

“Go to sleep Emma.” A pause. “If you’re good you may have breakfast with Henry and I tomorrow.”

She should probably be incensed by the note of teasing she hears in Regina’s voice but, “Actual breakfast? Like your pancakes and bacon?”

“Yes dear,” and yeah, even in the dark with her face pressed into the pillow Emma knows Regina is silently laughing at her. “You’re as bad as our son.”

The way Emma’s heart flutters at that simple word, just three letters…but its late and they’re both too tired so she shifts, getting comfortable on her stomach, arms around the pillow.  It’s getting harder to find the words, her mouth growing clumsy as she inches toward sleep, but she still manages to smile. “He got your brains, he had to get something from me.”

“His heart.”

“Hmm?”

The words are so quiet, barely a breath and it’s not like earlier, not as big as earlier and Emma’s so tired, but she forces herself to stay awake,  to concentrate. This is important. Not as big as earlier but important.

“He got his heart from you, Emma.”

The undignified snort is almost autonomic in how quickly it comes.

“And you call me an idiot,” Emma says, managing to roll to her side so she can talk without her face smooshed into the pillow.  “He loves like you, Regina. Wholly and completely with enough force to break someone. Or remake them. He loves like you.”

Regina is silent until Emma falls asleep.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this story will get finished. Thank you very much to those who commented. To those who read it again from the beginning you will notice I have committed a cardinal sin of fic writing. I changed the setting of the story. Yes, I know, I hate myself. Its cheap and lazy, but I realized what I had written in regard to the emotional tone fit _perfection_ with a lot of 4b and even some of the canon action (Regina going undercover). So I caved. Its not necessary to go back and read again though honestly nothing substantial was changed. Regina still gets hurt, Emma still gets pissed. They talk.


End file.
